upon as her lover?"

"He will do so. But you yourself shall save him and set him free. You
shall open his prison and give him freedom, and he will love you--you,
the savior of his life."

"Father, father, it is a hazardous game that you are playing; and it
may happen that you will become thereby your daughter's murderer. For,
listen well to what I tell you; if his head falls, I die by my own
hands; if you make me his murderess, you become thereby mine; and I will
curse you and execrate you in hell! What to me is a royal crown if it is
stained with Henry Howard's blood? What care I for renown and honor,
if he is not there to see my greatness, and if his beaming eyes do not
reflect back to me the light of my crown? Protect him, therefore; guard
his life as the apple of your eye, if you wish me to accept the royal
crown that you offer me, so that the King of England may become again a
vassal of the Church!"

"And that the whole of devout Christendom may praise Jane Douglas,
the pious queen who has succeeded in the holy work of bringing the
rebellious and recreant son of the Church, Henry the Eighth, back to the
Holy Father in Rome, to the only consecrated lord of the Church, truly
penitent. On, on, my daughter; do not despond. A high aim beckons you,
and a brilliant fortune awaits you! Our holy mother, the Church, will
bless and praise you, and Henry the Eighth will declare you his queen."

CHAPTER XX. THE PRISONER.

Still all was calm and quiet in the palace of Whitehall. Nothing was
stirring, and nobody had heard how Lady Jane Douglas left her chamber
and glided down the corridor.

No one has heard it, and no eye is awake, and none sees what is now
taking place in the queen's room. She is alone--all alone. The servants
are all asleep in their chambers. The queen herself has bolted the doors
of the anteroom on the inside, and no other door leads into her boudoir
and bedroom, except through this anteroom. She is therefore perfectly
secluded, perfectly secure.

Speedily and in haste she envelops herself in a long black mantle,
the hood of which she draws well over her head and brow, and which
completely covers and conceals her form.

And now she presses on a spring inserted in the frame of a picture.
The picture flies back and shows an opening, through which a person can
quite conveniently pass out.

Catharine does so. Then she carefully pushes the picture back to its
place from the outside, and for a lon